Next Stop: Everywhere
by Randiro Ellenath
Summary: He's a 900-year-old Time Lord from Gallifrey. She's a 21st Century teenager with an attitude. They travel the paths of time and space in a 50s police box. Together... they fight cri-- er, aliens! Doctor/Rose, but not over the top.
1. S1E0P: Prologue

**Author's Nonsense:** _ Hello and welcome. I'm doing something a little unusual for fanfic: I'm novelizing the NuWho series at the same time as I'm inserting new adventures. After all, the entire Series 1 takes place on some variation of Earth. Can't have that._

_Anyway, I'm doing this because I enjoy character analysis and thought I'd share. The novelization bits are my opinions of the characters' thoughts, motivations, attachments, and personalities. Usually, I've also shuffled some scenes about and tacked on a few new scenes, since prose works differently than TV. (Intercutting especially.) Since I've got the novelization part, the new stories are placed in context within the narrative, casting the official episodes in different lights. New aliens, new problems, new planets, new character developments. Woot._

_I have written drafts for the first twelve chapters, so updates should be regular. Haven't decided on a schedule yet, but I will soon. I've also got a blog for this fanfic, so I can avoid having three-mile-long author's notes, which are an issue for me otherwise. Updates and other nonsense will be on there too._

_Disclaimer: I make no claims of ownership over _Doctor Who_ or its characters, nor do I intend to make any form of material profit from it. Character interpretation is entirely my own opinion._

_- - - - -_

Next Stop: Everywhere

Prologue

- - - - -

Rose Marion Tyler was bored.

Oh, she was good at concealing it, even from herself. Excellent, actually.

Still, every so often she found herself wondering if there wasn't more to life. More than living with her mother in their unremarkable Council flat, more than a job at a shop selling clothes, more than a boyfriend who liked football and computers.

Not that there was anything wrong with those things: most of the time she was fine with all of this, with being nineteen, with her pedestrian life. She had friends and a bit of cash. She was well-cared-for and well-loved; her life was not without tension, but neither was it bad.

Ordinary was what it was.

Yet, slowly, she was forgetting. Rose was just a few years short of that cusp of adulthood, the age when the dreams of childhood fade into the overwhelming mundanity that leaches the very life from life. She was near accepting the lie perpetuated on the television and throughout Earth's culture: she had everything she needed to be happy.

As though happiness was to be found in things.

So, when her job was blown up on the Wednesday, the third of March, 2005, she didn't know quite what to think. She had this inexplicable feeling that she'd narrowly avoided a fate worse than death, but also that she'd missed out on something wonderful when she'd walked away.

She didn't know if she believed him, that man-- she probably didn't. It didn't really matter: that one night had blown loose her mind and rattled the shackles of her existence.

And with the chains percieved, she could no longer accept them.

- - - - -

The Doctor, on the other hand, was not bored.

In fact, his life was overfull of action. With manic energy he passed from adventure to adventure, tied to nothing and accountable to no one. And that was the way he liked it.

Or so he thought.

On Wednesday, the third of March, 2005, he ran into something odd. It was in a minor skermish with a long-time foe, one he hadn't seen in decades. Tracking it across the stars led him to Earth, London: his old stomping grounds.

Time was, he'd come here every couple of months. Time was, he'd have an assistant trotting at his heels, getting captured, needing rescue, and making inane observations. Whenever he gave it passing thought, he would wonder how he'd put up with it, then dismiss it from his mind.

A lot of things had changed since the Time War, and this was only one of them.

He was content to be alone, to need neither to endanger nor rely on anyone else. He liked it that way. He really did.

Until that girl happened, and old memories emerged from vacant rooms, shaking off the dust and shedding the dust-covers he'd used to protect them from him, or him from them. Before he'd collected his wits enough to stop them, the ghosts had thrown open the doors and pried the boards off the windows, letting light and air into chambers long closed.

It hurt, like peeling a rough bandage off a deep wound, fearing to see that it had not healed at all. He had grown so used to the dull and dogged pain, so accustomed to living his life around it to protect it from further injury, that it was strange to see it in the sunlight, not quite as bad as he'd thought it was.

He did his best to rewrap it and move on, but things could not be the same. A Time Lord knew it better than anyone: things never remained static for long, and even if they did, it was always an illusion. The simple truth was, despite his best efforts, he was healing.

He started to remember the good things.

And with the gaps in his soul percieved, he could no longer ignore them.


	2. S1E1P1: At Loose Ends

**Author's Nonsense:** _Forgot to mention, the first twelve chapters are written, needing only polish before I let them out the starting gates. That covers the first three and a half episodes, plus two between-chapter interludes._

_Also, the pre-title chapter codes are in this format: "Season X, Episode Y, Part Z". Most episodes will be in three parts._

_I guess I should warn you that this takes place in Third Person Omniscient, which is not a common point of view these days. It means I'm telling the story from several perspectives simultaneously, switching between them without starting a new section. If I'm honest, it's been awhile since I've done this style, so tell me if it's confusing and I'll see what I can do for the next chapters._

_Disclaimer: I make no claims of ownership over the following material, nor do I intend to make any form of material profit from it. Character interpretation is entirely my own opinion._

_See profile for a link to my blog, which has updates, information, and randomness._

_- - - - -_

Next Stop: Everywhere

"Rose"

Part One: At Loose Ends

- - - - -

_"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your front door. You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to." _

_-Bilbo Baggins_

- - - - -

It had started out as an ordinary day, of course, for both of them. Important days rarely begin wreathed in lightning or beset by fire; often, they are heralded by nothing at all. There is only the unending turn of life round the record player, never indicating anything is different until the needle leaps up of its own accord, skips to a different track, and plays something new. The change is only startling because it is unexpected.

Though not, perhaps, unlooked-for.

If the Doctor _had_ typical days, that day would have been one of them. His life fluctuated wildly, but all the same it was more or less normal for him to sniff around Earth, following up on a rumor he'd heard a few days back.

Certainly there was nothing special about that Third of March, for either of them.

For Rose, it was the most ordinary of days, one more tic mark to measure the collage of grayness that was her life. She woke up and went about her morning ritual, the little choices that made her feel in control of her life: shower, styling of her blonde hair, makeup, blue jeans, pink top today, pastel blue purse, keys, goodbye kiss for her mum. She took the bus to work. She had lunch with Mickey in the Square. She went back to work to wait for the day to be over.

Then the store closed, and on her way out, Derrick reminded her that she was to bring the lottery money down to Wilson, the chief electrician.

And that was when her record skipped. There began the long and startling moment between the music's sudden stop and the beginning of a new song. A storm blew her off course mid-migration, and she was knocked off her feet by the strangest man she'd ever met. She had a choice — of course she did — but for her, there was only one place the needle could have landed.

"Wilson," she called as she stepped out of the lift, glancing about the concrete corridor. She was supposed to be home soon, and she didn't want to miss the bus. It wasn't that long until the next one, but she preferred that one.

"Wilson, I've got the lottery money," she said, walking down the hall, passing boxes and blue doors. Approaching his office, she felt a sudden, vague urgency to get out quickly. He was supposed to have met her at the lift.

"Wilson," she said, knocking. "You there?"

Something was wrong. She tried the handle — locked. Not that unusual, right? Her instincts were telling her to get out, but her brain calmly informed them that they were being irrational. There was no response from the other side.

"Look," she said through the door. "I can't hang about; they're closing the shop."

No response. She rubbed her nose, leaning against the doorframe.

"Wilson!" she called through the door. To herself, she said, "Oi, come on."

She was about to shove it underneath the door when she jumped at the sound of something falling behind her. Turning, she thought she heard the echoes of running footsteps, and maybe a shout.

"Hello?" she called, moving toward the sound. "Hello, Wilson, it's Rose!"

There was nothing there, and no more sounds. Just an empty, poorly-lit cement hallway of boxes and doors and clothes racks — something about the silence made the hair rise on her arms. Slowly she made her way toward one of the storage rooms, where she thought she'd heard the sound, brushing by racks of stock as she walked.

"Hello?" she said. "Wil-Wilson?"

Strange humming came from the other side of a door — of course, the shadowiest one in the hall.

It was silly, of course; what could be down here? Thieves?

Not comforted by this thought, she nudged the door open. There was a bit of a drip coming from somewhere in the darkness: the lights were off, but she used the light from the hall to find the switch. With a mechanical hum and a series of clicks, the hanging bulbs illuminated the stockroom: shadowy piles of boxes looming over a few pathways, guarded by lifeless mannequins.

"Wilson!" she said, picking the corridor going straight, along the wall. "Wilson!"

A door came into view on her right; the sound must have come from through there. She picked up her pace and tugged on the handle. Locked again.

At that moment, the door slammed behind her.

Her head jerked round, and her heart rate doubled as she ran to the door she'd used to enter. She struggled with it for a few seconds. It wouldn't open. It shouldn't be locked — couldn't be locked — the lock was on _this_ side....

"You're _kidding_ me," she muttered at the closed portal. Her head snapped toward a new sound; someone was tapping away in the dark.

"Is that someone mucking about!" she said into the poorly-lit room, trying to get a grip on her breathing. She edged forward.

It was okay, because a third door was just across the room. Past the mannequins. Past the ordinary, harmless mannequins that did absolutely not move just now.

"Who is it?" she said, halfway across the room.

Something creaked behind her. She whirled to see a mannequin look at her. It turned the rest of its body and began to walk — her heart went into her throat —

And then it all made sense. Wilson disappearing, the noises to draw her this way... Of course.

"Hah, you got me," she said with a false smile, walking backwards toward the door. "Very funny."

But it didn't stop, and others started moving, too. The only sound was the creak of plastic — plus that drip that she couldn't see — and her own breathing. Her feet shuffled backwards toward the door that was farther away than ever.

"Right, I've got the joke!" she shouted. "Whose idea was this? Was it Derrick's?"

Her heart was a thundering drumbeat in her ears. The lack of response was getting to her. If they'd just answer, it would all be a good laugh. She'd still kill them, but —

"Is it?" she said, her voice leaking panic. "Derrick, is this you?"

All of the mannequins were moving toward her now, but she was almost at the far wall. Still walking backwards, she stumbled on packaging material —

When she righted herself, they were all around her, close enough that she couldn't edge toward the door, just flatten herself back against the concrete and pipes. She was almost there, just a little bit to her left....

They raised their hands to strike her, and she squeezed her eyes shut, ready to —

Something snatched her hand in that split second, and she instinctively closed it onto a stranger's hand. To her left she found a grinning man in a black leather jacket and buzzed hair.

"Run!" he said with that manic grin, tugging her after him.

She ducked as he pulled her through the door, and the dummy's hand knocked a section of pipe clean off, shooting steam after them as they ran.

And run they did, through double doors and down a different corridor. It was hard to run full tilt with a stranger holding her hand, but he didn't seem like he would let go anytime soon, and her panic was siphoning off through the simple presence of another human. Basic human contact, all she needed to drive those insane thoughts from her mind. For a second there, she'd thought — she'd almost believed —

Those people were still after them. Following, chasing, whatever. Plastic arms reached through iron gates and into the hallway; dodging past them, it seemed like they could outrun those behind, for now.

Through another set of double doors was a room with a lift, and the Doctor hoped the lift was still where he'd left it. What a human was doing down here when the store was closed, he had no idea. Clearly she possessed no self-preservation instincts if she'd been shouting loud enough for him to hear halfway across the basement.

No screaming, though. That was _always_ a plus.

The lift doors opened, and he pulled her through as the doors behind them burst open. Even with the surreptitious aid of his sonic screwdriver, the primitive doors took too long to open and twice as long to close. A pursuing Auton reached in after them, the doors closing on its upper arm. Its fingers strained toward them; it couldn't get any farther in, but neither could the doors close. The girl stayed at the back of the lift, which put her intelligence at slightly above average.

There was no pushing the arm back out, so he laid hold of it and, with three rough pulls, managed to rip it off. The screwdriver-enhanced doors closed, shutting the Autons outside. Now, just to deposit this little human to safety, and he'd be back to saving the world.

"You pulled his arm off!" she observed. Good, her eyes were working.

"Yep," he said, tossing it at her. She caught it, surprisingly. "Plastic."

"Very clever," she said. Yes, well he — "Nice trick," she continued. "Who were they, then, students?"

Humans. Their thought processes were quite beyond even his considerable intellect.

"Is this a student thing or what?" she said to the bloke who had to be the ringleader. Set up the gag, make her panic, pull her out at the last minute. Maybe they were videoing the whole thing, and it would be up on youtube later tonight.

"Why would they be students?" he said, turning away from the door with a furrowed brow: here was a minor puzzle to pass the time.

"I dunno," she hedged.

"Well, you said it," he said, glancing at the door. "Why students?"

" 'Cause..." she said, feeling as though she was proving herself somehow. "To get that many people dressed up and being silly, they've gotta be students."

"That makes sense," he said, smiling in surprise. He turned to size her up: she was still breathing hard, but she'd kept her wits about her. Amazing. "Well done."

"Thanks," she said, sounding irritated. Well, that was one minor mystery solved.

"They're not students," he said with a little bit of iron.

"Whoever they are," she said. "When Wilson finds them, he's gonna call the police."

"Who's Wilson?" he asked.

"Chief Electrician," she said.

The lift dinged.

"Wilson's dead."

She hesitated before following him back outside.

"That's just not funny!" she said as he pulled out his sonic screwdriver. "That's sick!"

He took her by the shoulders and pushed her back.

"Hold on," he said. "Mind your eyes."

"I've had enough of this now!" she said, and he used the sonic screwdriver on the lift controls. She winced backward as they sparked, and he strode past her.

"Who are you, then!" she said, turning but not following. "Who's that lot down there!"

He ignored her, as he usually did when humans yelled at him while he was saving the world.

"I said, who are they!" she shouted after him, then followed. She was getting _shrill._

"They're made of plastic," he said, going up a corridor, taking a few turns, and brushing past protective plastic sheets toward the exit. More trouble than she was worth, this one. "Living plastic creatures. Being controlled by a relay device on the roof, which would be a great big problem —" He turned at the door, holding up the detonator. "— if I didn't have _this_."

"So!" he said, trotting up a short flight of stairs to the exterior door. "I'm gonna go upstairs and blow it up. And I might well die in the process, but don't worry about me, no."

He put his hand on her shoulder and shunted the bewildered girl out the door.

"You go on," he continued amiably. "Go on! Go have your lovely beans on toast." His tone turned deadly serious. "Don't tell anyone about this, because if you do, you'll get them killed."

He slammed the door behind him. Minor problem, solved! He was on a roll today. Saved a girl he sort of liked — she was pretty brave for a human, even if she was clinging to delusions to keep herself comfortable. Not to mention she was annoying. Also, ungrateful. Not that he much expected gratitude from humans anymore.

Still, she'd kept her wits, which was unusual and good. What was her name? Hadn't asked. No matter! Back to world-saving! He might not be very good at it, but it was the only trade he knew.

Rose glanced around, trying to orient herself both geographically and mentally. That man was like a whirlwind of manic energy. What on Earth was going on in there? If he had a bomb, though, it was probably a very bad idea to go back inside.

She was turning away, having located herself in a back alley behind the store, when the door burst open again.

"I'm the Doctor, by the way," he said. "What's your name?"

"Rose."

"Nice to meet you, Rose," he said very cordially, then, with far more insanity, he added, "Run for your life!"

He slammed the door again, and she blinked at it for a second. Whirlwind.

She picked up her feet, feeling a bit silly for running from something that was probably just some kind of prank. But, as she picked up speed, she felt more and more like something was after her; she glanced about the main street when she got there, that insane plastic arm still clutched in her hand. Rounding a corner, she stood up against the wall as though hiding from something, breathing hard.

All around her were people, ordinary people who had no idea — should she warn them? Had to cross the street to get away — she walked, then ran, nearly got run over, her breath freezing as she saw the headlights too late and heard the car's horn. She ran past, and kept running.

She kept glancing back at Henrik's, her workplace. Once she got across the Square, she turned to look at the building. Innocuous enough, silent, dark —

Turning back toward home, she heard the explosion, blossoming up from the roof. She flinched down and back, watching as a secondary explosion took out the top floor. Everybody was running, and the store was ablaze.

Plastic arm in hand, she sprinted away from her burning job.

- - - - -

It was funny, how quickly life gobbled up the strangeness of the encounter. The world didn't care what had happened to her: she still had to take the bus home, and, sitting there with the most ordinary of people, people who had no idea what had just happened, she slipped back into the dream. It was like she'd been awake, fully and properly awake for the first time in her life, but she was sliding back into a fuzzy doze.

Some kind of prank gone wrong, and rather horribly wrong at that. The adrenaline faded away, and that tiny spark of belief seemed more like a seed of fancy, or maybe madness. The more she thought about it, the more insane that man seemed — he hadn't at the time, but in hindsight....

He hadn't even told her a proper name, just that he was a doctor. What kind of doctor blows up buildings, anyway? Maybe it was a code name or something.

Idly she wondered how old he was. Thirty-five? Forty? It was hard to say; she was a terrible judge of age.

Of course, it was possible that he was dead.

Every time she thought that, it was like static discharge from a doorknob, jolting the world back into that wild and bright contrast. A little shot of adrenaline was all it was, but it was strange to be sitting on a bus playing pop music with a dozen tame, silent passengers, when her thoughts were so _loud._

Not to mention the basic weirdness of sitting on a bus, wondering in boredom whether a man she'd just met was dead or not. Which just cast everything back into that state of heightened awareness: her _job_ had been blown up.

Her emotions were on the fritz — left and right, back and forth. She didn't have a job anymore, and she still owed a couple hundred quid. How was she going to get the money?

Well, right now, she didn't really care.

The sharp sound of her mobile punctured her reverie; she jumped at the noise, fumbling in her pocket to reject the call. In all the fuss, she'd forgotten to turn it off before boarding the bus. Normally she didn't feel threatened by people in the bus, but tonight she could feel their eyes on her; she gave them a wan smile of apology and turned uncomfortably away.

She was almost home, anyway; she'd let her mother fuss in person.

Her stop came round, and she stepped onto the ordinary, unremarkable, surreal street. It was a different world from the place where her job had been blown up, and she followed its dark sidewalk toward her flat. Scattered, she felt; it was almost a surprise when her mother yanked her keys out of her hand by opening the door when they were still in the lock.

Thus followed a conversation assuring her mother that she was alive, she was fine, she hadn't been in the building. Hugs and kisses and her mother all over the phone, telling everyone about how Rose had almost died.

She ended up in front of the telly, wondering what the news would make of the fire. Maybe they'd have something on the man who'd blown up the building. That doctor, the whirlwind man.

Maybe he was a spy. Or a wannabe spy. Wannabe spy with delusions and... crazy. The news droned on. A body had been found — he hadn't been lying about that, anyway.

It occurred to her that she was thinking about a man she knew, _dead_, with very little attachment to the matter.

_"The whole of Central London has been closed off as police investigate the fire. Early reports indicate...."_

"I know, it's on the telly!" said Rose's mother, bringing her daughter tea and leaving again. The phone was practically soldered to her ear as she related the most exciting piece of gossip for years. "She's lucky to be alive! Honestly, it's aged her — skin like an old Bible. Walking in now, you'd think I was her daughter! Oh, and here's himself...."

Wide-eyed Mickey walked in the living room as she blew on her tea, glancing up to see her boyfriend. The news was still going, and her mother was talking in another room.

"I've been phoning your mobile!" Mickey said, coming around the sofa toward her. "You coulda been dead! It's on the news and everything — I can't believe that your shop went up!"

He leaned over and hugged her tightly. Was _everyone_ she knew going to overreact like this? That Doctor was the only other person who hadn't panicked, and he was _there._

"I'm all right, honestly," she protested. "I'm fine! Don't make a fuss."

"But what happened?" Mickey asked, sitting down next to her.

"I dunno," she said. Jackie hadn't really asked her, what with phoning everyone she'd ever met about this, so it was the first time she'd been asked that question.

"What was it, though?" he asked. "What caused it?"

"I wasn't in the shop," she said. She didn't really believe she'd get people killed by telling them, did she? It was like some sort of basic secret-keeping instinct kicked in: she just... couldn't say. But she didn't lie, either. "I was outside. Didn't see anything."

"It's Debbie on the end," said Jackie, having wandered back in. "She knows a man on the _Mirror,_ five hundred quid for an interview!"

"Oh, that's brilliant, give it here!" said Rose, getting seriously annoyed with all the fuss. She hung up and slammed the phone on the glass coffee table.

"Well, you've got to find _some_ way of making money," protested Jackie, arms crossed. "Your job's kaput, and I'm not bailing you out!"

The phone rang again, and Jackie could not resist answering it.

"Beth!" she said, leaving again. "She's alive! I've told ya! Due for compensation!"

Rose rubbed her eye in irritation at her mother's reaction. She was just tired.

"She was within seconds of death!" came her mother's voice from the other room. Long, absurd day that just needed to be over. But Mickey was still here....

"What are you drinking — tea!" said Mickey, taking her mug and looking inside. He got up. "Naw, no, that's no good, that's no good! You're in shock! You need something stronger."

He picked up her hand, but she wasn't having it. Mickey tugged, but she didn't get up.

"I'm all right," she said.

"Now, come on," he said. "You deserve a proper drink. We're going down to the pub, you and me. My treat, how 'bout it?"

"Is there a match on?" she asked, sensing an ulterior motive. Last thing she wanted right now, going somewhere with Mickey. He was boyish, and that was what she liked about him, but he could also be a serious drain on energy when he was like this.

He put a hand on his chest in mock innocence, and he released her hand.

"No, no," he said, sitting back down. "Just thinking about you, sweetheart."

"There's a match on, ain't there?" she said, a smile creeping over her face.

"Well, that's not the point," he said. "But we could catch the last five minutes...."

"Go on, then," she said, smiling and waving to the door. "I'm fine, really. Go."

He moved to get up, and she pointed at the arm sitting on a chair.

"And get rid of that," she said. It seemed to be ordinary plastic, as far as she could tell — no answers there.

"Hm," he said, beckoning toward his lips. Rose smiled, sighed dramatically, and leaned forward to kiss him. They laughed, and he pushed her back to the sofa — she tripped him on his way out. He picked up the arm and waved it at her.

"Buh-bye!" he said in what was probably meant to be an arm-voice.

"Bye!" she said. Mickey put the hand against his neck, making a choking noise. She smiled, but it faded when he left. His visit picked her up a little, but she was still just tired. Her mother had gone quiet, so there was only the news.

_"Fire then spread throughout the store. Fifteen fire crews are in attendance, though it is thought that there is very little chance of saving the infrastructure..."_

She shut it off. The only sound left was the muzzy roar of her fatigue, and the sound of that couple arguing at full volume across the street.

Mickey tuned out the shouting match as he had so many times. It was a good thing him and Rose weren't like that, but sometimes he wanted a bit more than she offered. It was all games and grins with her; she never seemed to want to go any deeper.

He tossed the arm in a trash bin as he walked by, heading back across a small courtyard to his flat. He could watch the game from home, if the boys weren't going to see his girlfriend.

- - - - -

The Doctor left by a back exit to the burning store, adjusting his slightly-charred leather jacket. He'd needed to set the timer for a very short countdown, but the explosive had done the trick without blowing him up. If there was anything he was good at, it was running away.

Even with Autons rampaging about the whole building, it had not been difficult to outwit them and get to the roof. He hadn't been quite certain before, but by the technology the relay used, now he was sure exactly who he was dealing with.

Yet another echo of the past sent to haunt him.

It was times like this that the Doctor wondered vindictively if there wasn't something behind the human concept of Purgatory. Maybe he _had_ died in the Time War, and this was his punishment: an unending round of battles with people he had failed to save, enemies he had failed to defeat.

But then, he'd always lived like this. And now there was no alternative.

For some reason, his thoughts wandered to that pink-wearing girl with the bleached-blonde hair. The one who'd kept her wits. Something about her hinted of _possibility,_ but he didn't know what or why. He'd only seen her for ten minutes at most, and he hadn't been _that_ impressed with her. Better than some, worse than others. Nothing special.

But —

No. That part of his life was over. It was dead, gone, forgotten, best lost and buried. He'd seen so much, done so many terrible things; he wouldn't inflict himself on anyone.

Those rooms in his mind were boarded up for a reason. It was safer for him that way, safer for everyone. Behind those doors must lurk chimerae of pain and memory, and by leaving them closed, he was spared looking into the eyes of the basilisk.

He'd just go on like this until he died.

Maybe then he could start again.

- - - - -

The next morning, Rose squinted at her alarm. A mental marker went off in her brain: she didn't have to get up because... right, job blown up. Why hadn't she turned off her alarm? Rolling over, she sat up, licking her lips.

"There's no point in getting up, sweetheart!" called Jackie. "You've got no job to go to."

She slumped back to bed and put a hand on her forehead. What was she going to do? She almost felt like crying, but that strange man kept intruding on her thoughts. Really, this was getting out of hand. It was just some crazy bloke who'd almost blown up a building while she was still in it. Nothing — nothing unusual about....

It was just....

Folding back her pink bedspread, she hauled herself out of bed. There was no going back to sleep now. She might as well get up and go about the day.

After staring listlessly at her closet for a few seconds, she picked a pair of jeans and a gray top at random. In went her customary hoop earrings, and on went her makeup. Her hair she left down.

The whole thing was just so outlandish, so strange, that for the briefest of moments, it was as though she'd been watching black-and-white television her whole life, and it had suddenly switched to full color and blasting sound. Dangerous, to be sure, and insane and shocking and wild, but its absence was felt nonetheless.

Her mind was temporarily shocked loose from those chains of mundanity, and as she lost the muffling pressure she was so used to, she felt terrifyingly exposed and somehow powerful.

...Free.

She wasn't sure she liked it. What, after all, could she do with it?

So she she drifted to the living room and sat at the oval table, staring at a basket of apples and not feeling particularly hungry. Last night, her mother had bustled about on the telephone, inflating the story beyond reason. Only she hadn't, because she didn't know what had really happened. Rose felt almost... disconnected from it all, from the flat, from her mother, from the news and her job and life. Like she was floating, but there was nowhere to go.

Leaning her head on one hand, she absently picked up an apple and wondered about that man. An image: leather jacket, dark clothes, buzzed hair, detonator. Manic personality, and something... something behind the eyes, something strange and old and sad.

Some kind of terrorist, maybe. With a group of... costumed accomplices. Yeah.

He'd asked her _name._ What kind of terrorist gets everybody out of the building, and then asks the name of somebody he's just rescued?

Clearly there was some kind of... thing going on if he was serious about blowing up the roof.

Insane. Yes, that made far more sense. Delusional. Maybe he'd come across the prank with the dummies and... come prepared with explosives... in case of... um....

Besides, as strange as the whole fiasco was, it was more like she'd caught a glimpse of something... something _bigger_. An adventure, however mad of one, had been dangled in front of her — she'd just caught a little glimpse, and she wanted to know more.

But the burgeoning day was looming over her, and her mother was making coffee in the kitchen a few yards away, visible through the open door and little window. Rose would have to face it sooner or later; she'd have to get back to her life and find another job or something.

"There's Finch's," said Jackie, wrapped in her pink satin dressing gown, coming to sit at the table. She was worried about her daughter, cut adrift, still in debt. "You could try them. They've always got jobs."

"Oh, great," she said distractedly, rolling the apple between her hands. "The butcher's."

"Well it might do you good," said Jackie, leaning forward. "That shop was giving you airs and graces. And I'm not joking about compensation. You've had genuine shock and trauma."

Jackie got up to go back toward her room, but she wasn't done yet. "Ariana got two thousand quid off the Council just because the man behind the desk said she looked Greek!"

Rose furrowed her brow. Um...

"I know she _is_ Greek," said Jackie, returning to her room. "But that's not the point! It's a valid claim."

Rose smiled, but she wished her mum would just let up for awhile. She needed to sort herself out a bit... get her bearings. She didn't know what she wanted to do, now that the chains were gone....

She didn't get to finish this though, because the cat flap, well, _flapped._

"Mum, you're such a liar!" Rose said, striding toward the door. "I told you to nail that cat flap down — we're gonna get strays!"

"I did it weeks back!" called Jackie from the other room. Rose brushed her hair back and leaned over the flap.

"No, you thought about it!" she called, but when she reached down, she saw several screws on the floor. She picked one up. What?

The flap flicked at her, and she jumped back with a small gasp, then got down on her knees and, in the pinnacle of scientific experimentation, poked it.

It didn't bite her, so she pushed it all the way open and looked through. Framed in the opening, also leaning down to look through the hole, was a face.

It was that man.

She gasped and started to her feet. Her hands, quite of their own accord, opened the door.

"What're you doing here?" he asked, getting to his own feet and looking her up and down.

"I live here," she said.

"Well, what d' you do that for?" he asked.

" 'Cause I do!" Rose said, not at all sure how to answer that question. "I'm only home because _someone_ blew up my job."

Ooh, accusatory, he wished that were new. He fumbled for his sonic screwdriver and flipped it on.

"Musta got the wrong signal," he said. "You're not plastic, are you?"

He rapped his knuckles on her forehead.

"Nope," he said before she could respond. How, in the course of eleven hours, could she have managed to forget how absurd and random he was? "Bonehead. Bye then!"

He turned to swan off, but Rose grabbed his arm and pulled him over the threshold.

"You, inside, right now!" she said, pushing him up against the wall and turning to close the door. Surprised, he slid the sonic screwdriver back into his jacket and looked around.

"Who is it?" called Jackie, hearing something at the door.

"It's about last night," said Rose from the doorway to Jackie's room. "He's part of the inquiry — give us ten minutes."

"She deserves compensation!" said Jackie as he passed her door.

"Hah!" he said, thinking that girl was a pretty good liar. "We're talking millions."

He glanced back into the house, not sure where Rose had disappeared to. Quiet walker, she was. Strange one. Strange flat, too — but then, human choices of habitation were always interesting. Still, this one was... maybe there was something inside. If Rose had held onto that arm....

Jackie hemmed and cleared her throat, catching his wandering attention.

"I'm in my dressing gown," she said, standing. What was it with humans and stating the obvious?

"Yes, you are," he confirmed with great patience.

"There's a strange man in my bedroom," she observed.

"Yes, there is."

"Well," she said, "Anything could happen."

Ah.

"No," he said with a patronizing smile, then followed his expert deduction to where the TV was running.

"Don't mind the mess," said Rose, moving some magazines into something resembling a stack. "Do you want a coffee?"

"Might as well, thanks," he said as she disappeared into the kitchen, "Just milk."

"We should go to the police," she said, preparing the coffee stuff with her back to him. She was still visible through the door and window.

He wasn't quite sure what he'd done wrong with his tracking device; maybe she'd picked up traces of energy while she was in the basement. His eyes fell on the glass coffee table, and he felt the irresistible itch of curiosity. He picked up the top magazine, a typical teen celebrity mag, and browsed.

"Seriously," she was saying. "Both of us."

"Hm," he said of the first page he landed on. "That won't last. He's gay and she's an alien."

He tossed the magazine down and found a book.

"I'm not blaming you," said Rose, spooning out instant coffee. "Even if it was some sort of joke that just went wrong."

"Hm," he said, flipping through the book. "Sad ending."

He moved on to a pile of mail, picking up a letter.

"It said on the news they found a body," said Rose. Her fishing for information was really not going anywhere. Was he even paying attention?

"Rose Tyler," he mused to himself, reading the letter's address, then glanced to the right and saw himself in the mirror.

"Suppose it was Mr. Wilson," she said quietly, more to herself than him. She couldn't talk about this to anyone else, could she? Whoever he was, he was the only one who knew.

"Ah, could've been worse," he said of his latest regeneration. He was still getting used to it, really — it had been awhile, but he didn't do a lot of preening. Nobody to see him, anyway. He flapped his earlobes with his fingers. "But look at the ears!"

"I didn't even know him," she said quietly. Wilson was dead now, but she kept thinking of him academically, which was disconcerting. "But all the same, he was nice."

"Luck be a lady," he sang, fixing on a deck of cards.

"He was a nice man," she repeated, tying to focus. In the living room, he arced the cards from one hand to the other, and Rose gathered her wits again.

"Anyway," she said more strongly, almost done with the coffee. "If we are going to the police, I want to know what I'm saying. I want you to explain everything."

The cards went everywhere as he tried a different trick, and Rose decided he hadn't been listening at all.

"Maybe not," he said to himself from the spray of cards. He was still waiting for her to say something that had to do with him, ask a question, or otherwise do something that required a response. So far, she'd just been saying things they both already knew, or that had no relevance to the matter at hand — well, whatever it was she wanted. She hadn't actually said that, either.

Hearing something rustle behind the sofa, he said, "What's that, then?"

It rustled again, and he knelt on the sofa with his hands on the back.

"Have you got a cat?" he asked.

"No," she said. What did that have to do with anything? If she could just get him to _focus..._.

He leaned over the sofa, and just as he got to an angle to look behind it, something leapt out at him.

Plastic fingers closed around his throat, cutting off the air. He scrabbled at the arm from last night, trying to get it off him. Chest starting to burn, he couldn't get a good enough angle on it to pull it off —

"We did have," she said, finishing the coffee. If her mother had just nailed the flap down like she'd said.... "But we just get strays, come in off the Estate."

The hand had cut off his windpipe entirely, so he couldn't make a sound as she kept right on talking. This angle of his body to the arm was really not optimum for getting it off him — his respiratory bypass system was working, but that didn't stop it from _hurting __—_

So help him, if he died while she was talking about cats.

She sighed and returned to the living room, where he was struggling to keep the arm from killing him, having collapsed to a chair.

"I told Mickey to cut that out," she said, calmly setting the coffees on the table. "You're all the same. Give a man a plastic hand...."

She straightened up in exasperation.

"Anyway, I don't even know your name!" she said. "Doctor... what was it?"

Before she'd managed to finish the words, he managed to wrench the hand off his throat with enough force to throw it into the room. Breathing hard, his fingers went up to his rasping throat, confirming that it was not, as he'd half thought, crushed. The girl gasped as the arm reached the top of its arc, then failed to descend. It hovered in midair for a half-second, then rushed at her face.

No time to recover — he jumped forward to try to get it off her. Somewhere else in the flat, a hair dryer started running. He tried the same series of jerks he'd used to dislodge the arm from its body last night, but ended up pulling Rose down on top of him instead — they crashed through the glass coffee table.

She rolled off him, flailing backward in panic and ending up on the sofa. It was over her mouth and nose — she couldn't _breathe__ —_

The Doctor found his sonic screwdriver and used his left arm to steady the Auton arm (and, incidentally, her writhing) and his right to flash a flare of sonic energy at it. The thing lost its grip, and he pulled it off her face. She shrank away to the other side of the sofa, and he clicked through a couple of different settings until he hit the right one, then pressed the sonic screwdriver against the palm. The fingers waggled for a few seconds, then froze.

"It's all right, I've stopped it," he said, tossing the arm at her and grinning. She gasped and flinched back, but still caught it. "There you go, you see? Harmless."

"Do you think!" she said, still gasping for breath. She swung the arm at his bicep — hard.

"Ow!" he said, rubbing his arm. He'd just saved her life! Again! So much for any thanks from _her._

Well, he'd gotten what he was looking for: Auton piece neutralized, possible tracing signal obtained. His scanners hadn't been malfunctioning after all; why had he ever doubted? Of course the silly human hadn't thrown the arm away, because, as he'd realized last night, she lacked any sort of self-preservation instinct.

He snatched the arm from her and took off out the door.

Rose sat there for a second, half-stunned, then grabbed a zip-hoodie as she ran after him. Shrugging into the jacket, she caught up to him on the stairwell.

"Hold on a minute," she said, following closely. "You can't just go swanning off!"

"Yes I can," he said, not stopping. "Here I am, this is me, swanning off. See ya!"

"But that arm was moving!" she said. "It tried to kill me!"

"Ten out of ten for observation," he said, still not really sure what she wanted, just that she was yelling at him. She hadn't actually asked a question yet.

"You can't just walk away!" she said. "That's not fair! You-you've gotta tell me what's going on."

"No, I don't," he said amiably, reaching the bottom and opening the door.

"All right, then," she said, still on his heels. They crossed a yard and passed several buildings. "I'll go to the police. I'll tell everyone. You told me that if I did that, I'd get people killed, so. Your choice."

For some reason, he was hiding a smile. What was he doing that for? Probably something about her totally matter-of-fact tone. Like a fish, calmly threatening a hook.

"Tell me, or I'll start talking," she said just as casually as before, barely a step behind.

"Is that s'posed to sound tough?" he asked, glancing back at her.

"Sort of," she admitted, taking a position at his side.

"Doesn't work," he said.

"Who _are_ you?" she asked, falling a step behind again. Lo, was it a question? It was indeed. And she wasn't yelling at him anymore.

"I told you, the Doctor," he said.

"Yeah, but," she said. "Doctor what?"

"Just 'the Doctor'."

"The Doctor?"

"Hello!" he said, waving and glancing back. His grin wasn't fading.

"Okay," she said, pushing her hair behind an ear with a chuckle. She said with her own smile, "Is that supposed to sound impressive?"

"Sort of," he returned her words.

"Come on, then," she said, catching up and touching his arm. "You can tell me. I've seen enough."

He transferred the Auton arm to his opposite hand. But... still not a question.

"Are you the police?" she asked, walking close alongside him.

"Naaw," he said derisively, and all at once he realized why he was still grinning. He hadn't had someone walk _with_ him for such a long time now, and it felt... good. He couldn't keep her, of course, and she wasn't exactly the sort he wanted to talk to, but....

"I was just... passing through," he said truthfully. "I'm a long way from home."

"But what have I done wrong?" she asked, still focused on herself. They were getting farther and farther from her flat, not that she cared. "How come those plastic things keep coming after me?"

"Oh, so then, the entire world revolves around you!" he said. "You were just an accident. You got in the way — that's all."

"It tried to _kill_ me!"

"It was after me, not you!" he said. "Last night, in the shop, I was there, you blundered in, nearly ruined the whole thing." He lifted the arm, noting that she was listening rather well. "This morning, I was trackin' it down, it was trackin' me down — the only reason it fixed on you was because you've met me!"

"So what you're saying is," she said, just to confirm, "the entire world revolves around you?"

"Sort of, yeah," he said, grinning. Odd — he was often playful, but she was playing back, even after he'd almost gotten her killed. Why had he let her keep the arm to begin with, anyway?

"You're full of it!" she laughed, almost sounding like she believed him.

"Sort of, yeah," he grinned.

"But — " she said. "All this plastic stuff, who else knows about it?"

"No one," he said.

"What, you-you're on your own?" she asked.

"Well, who else is there?" he said. "You lot, all you do is eat chips, go to bed, and watch telly. While all the time, underneath you, there's a war going on!"

She surprised him by reaching across his body and taking the Auton arm.

"Okay," she said, brushing her blonde hair behind an ear. "Let's start from the beginning."

They turned down a new street, and he considered what to say. The beginning was far enough back that it would require a totally new explanation, but she saved him by babbling her way to another question when he didn't respond immediately.

"I mean, if you're gonna go with the living plastic, and I don't even believe that, but if we do, how did you kill it?" she said. It was a fine dance she was doing, he thought, carefully setting up the denial like that before asking something that assumed it to be true. Hedging at its finest: a real high-wire act. It meant her curiosity outweighed her skepticism, though, and that was good.

"The thing controlling it projects life into the arm," he said. "I cut off the signal — death."

"So that's — radio control?" she asked.

"Thought control," he said patiently. She faltered in her stride. "You all right?"

"Yeah," she said. "So who's controlling it, then?"

"Long story," he said. She was asking all the right questions, actually, but it was a waste of time if she was going to stick to denial. They turned off the street and followed a white fence past a playground.

"But what's it all for? I mean, shop window dummies — what's that about?" she said, leaning over conspiratorially. "Is someone trying to take over Britain's shops?"

They both laughed comfortably, like they'd known each other for rather longer than half a day.

"No," he chuckled.

"I know," she managed.

"It's not a price war," he joked, then dropped his tone into perfect gravity. "They want to overthrow the human race and destroy you."

He glanced sideways with an intense look, watching her. Her smile faded, and she said nothing.

"Do you believe me?" he asked.

"No."

"But you're still listening."

"Really, though, Doctor," she said, stopping. He kept walking. "Tell me. Who are you?"

He'd already answered that question, hadn't — no. She wasn't asking his name. He turned around with a strange expression on his face. Her countenance was just... curiosity, untempered and simple, with perhaps a touch of naive concern for him. She seemed young to him then, and so vulnerable.

They'd never see each other again, if she was lucky, so what was the harm?

"You know like we were saying, about the Earth revolving?" he said, walking back to her. How to... put this... in Earth terms. His gaze wandered as he thought, but Rose's never faltered. "It's like when you're a kid. The first time they tell you that the world's turning, and you just can't quite _believe_ it because everything looks like it's standing still."

His eyes found hers again, and she stayed silent:

"I can feel it."

He took her hand and held it, his grip tightening as he spoke.

"The turn of the Earth. The ground beneath our feet is spinning at a thousand miles an hour, and the entire planet is hurtling around the Sun at sixty-seven thousand miles an hour, and I can _feel_ it. We're falling through space, you and me. Clinging to the skin of this tiny little world, and if we let go — "

He released her hand, and it swung back to her side.

"That's who I am," he said. "Now forget me, Rose Tyler."

He took back the Auton arm and waved it at her:

"Go home."

Frowning again, he strode toward the TARDIS, and she didn't stop him. He had things to do, and this conversation had taken up time. He'd almost hoped — but no. She had stopped short of the TARDIS, and it was useless to speculate on what might have happened if she'd come up to the door with him.

She'd gotten within ten yards of it, though, and still holding the arm, so he was forced to wonder if he had not intended to let her inside. If she hadn't stopped....

So close.

But it was impossible.

And anyway, wishing after something he couldn't — shouldn't — have was a waste of energy. He groped for the key and let himself inside, closing the door behind him.

Bit odd, that one. He hadn't met a human like that for... oh, a long time. Refreshing, though: he'd almost forgotten about that side to this species.

He walked up the ramp to the main console, setting the arm there. A glance at the outside monitor revealed that Rose had her back to him, and she was walking away, trailing her fingers on the slats of the fence beside her.

She wasn't certain how much she'd gotten out of that conversation, except that the man didn't seem to be insane, at least not in the conventional sense. The remaining choices seemed to be a lying spy or some kind of weird supernatural protector of the Earth, like you'd find on TV. He'd almost talked as though he wasn't _from_ Earth....

But that was impossible.

The fence ended, and she walked toward home, feeling strangely bereft. She'd let him go again, and it seemed like she should have followed him or something. Instead, she'd let him slip through her fingers, startled and a little scared by the last thing he'd said.

And maybe that's what he'd intended... should she ignore that?

The man was, after all, dangerous. That was the only thing she really knew about him: she'd been attacked both times she'd seen him. She still wasn't sure whether he'd saved her life or not — if it was all some kind of joke, then he was one of them.... No, she didn't really believe that anymore.

From behind, a gust of wind stirred her hair and caught her attention. It carried a very, very strange noise, almost like something scraping along metal guitar strings. She turned, puzzled, then arrived at a decision and ran back to where she'd left the Doctor.

He wasn't there.

One thing was different, though: the blue box was gone.


End file.
